Business link probed amid hunt for missing family

Annalise Klingbeil, Calgary Herald07.06.2014

RCMP members continue their search for evidence in a field northeast of Airdrie on July 7, 2014. Police are still looking for clues into the disappearance of Nathan OÕBrien and his grandparents Alvin and Kathy Liknes.Gavin Young
/ Calgary Herald

Members of the Calgary Fire Department Aquatic Team made their way into the search area at a slough near the Airdrie search area in connection with the disappearance of Nathan O’Brien, 5, Alvin Liknes and Kathryn Liknes.Colleen De Neve Colleen De Neve Colleen De Neve
/ Calgary Herald

A tired RCMP officer ends his day as he walks down Range Road 290 to a waiting van.David Moll
/ Calgary Herald

Officers make their way into the search area at a slough near the Airdrie search area in connection with the disappearance of Nathan O’Brien, 5, Alvin Liknes and Kathryn Liknes.Colleen De Neve Colleen De Neve
/ Calgary Herald

A tired RCMP officer ends his day as he walks down Range Road 290 to a waiting van.David Moll

Officers made their way out of the search area at a slough near the Airdrie search area in connection with the disappearance of Nathan O’Brien, 5, Alvin Liknes and Kathryn Liknes.Colleen De Neve Colleen De Neve Colleen De Neve
/ Calgary Herald

Police followed the trail of a suspicious green truck and a convicted drug-cooker with links to a missing Calgary boy’s family to a rural Airdrie...

As police continue to search for a missing five-year-old and his grandparents, they have also been looking at business connections between the family and a man considered a person of interest in the case.

RCMP and Calgary police officers intensified their hunt for the missing trio at three locations in rural Airdrie on Monday.

They conducted meticulous grid searches around a slough and on a separate fenced field, both near a 16-hectare property owned by Archie and Doreen Garland, the parents of Douglas Garland, who police consider a person of interest in the investigation into the disappearance of Nathan O’Brien and Alvin and Kathryn Liknes.

The five-year-old and his grandparents were reported missing last Monday and were last seen at the Liknes family’s Parkhill home on June 29 following a weekend estate sale.

A source close to the family told the Herald that Alvin Liknes and Garland had a dispute over a business deal several years ago.

But police sources said this is just one of several avenues they are investigating in the case, which has captured international attention.

Douglas Garland once operated an illegal drug lab on the Airdrie property that has been searched by authorities since the weekend.

Police were called to the Garlands’ acreage after receiving a tip that it contained a late ‘90s green truck similar to the one that was seen driving near the Liknes family residence several times on the evening of the disappearance.

Police took Garland, 54, in for questioning on Saturday, but he was released from police custody the following day.

Garland was then remanded in custody for two days at Calgary’s remand facility on charges of possessing identification in the name of Matthew Hartley, a 14-year-old Cardston boy killed in a 1980 car crash.

He appeared in court on Monday and spoke to Judge Mark Tyndale during a brief court appearance.

While court records indicated he had identity documents in Hartley’s name three days ago when police detained him, Garland told the court during his initial court appearance by closed circuit television he had not had the chance to speak to a lawyer about the charge.

Tyndale adjourned the matter for about an hour so that Garland could speak to duty counsel.

When Tyndale subsequently ordered Garland be held in custody for an additional 48 hours during which police can continue to interview him, Garland said a quick “thank you,” smiled into the camera and then exited the hearing room at the detention facility.

Although he served a 39-month sentence for drug trafficking in connection with the drug lab operated during the 1990s on the Airdrie property, Garland’s last brush with the law was a 2009 incident in Airdrie in which he failed to yield to a pedestrian and was fined $575.

Police remained at the Garlands’ property Monday as search crews scoured a slough about 500 metres from the property, and officials began searching a third location — a separate fenced field more than two kilometres away.

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